


What We Do For Fun

by orphan_account



Category: As It Is (Band), Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album), Set It Off (Band), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic), Waterparks (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Clairvoyance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Guns, Heavy Angst, Horror, Minor Character Death, Multi, Nightmares, Rescue Missions, Survivor Guilt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-11-28 20:05:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18212987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “What does this all mean? Why… why me?” he asks, his voice getting smaller as an intense feeling of sadness washes over him and dampens all of the hope he’s ever had for the future.“You will lose everything and have all of the things you love destroyed before you can know your true worth and we can take our rightful place among the likes of The Starmasters, The Cobra… The Witch.”The feelings of melancholy don’t fade and make Crybaby feel like curling up into a ball and sleeping forever. He thinks about the remorseful tone that was carried in the other’s voice and it dawns on him that he’s not the only one who’s going to suffer in their shared situation. As bad as Crybaby feels must only be amplified for the other who has to carry on long after Crybaby has met his end.“It must be lonely,” Crybaby says, opening his eyes to see a pair of legs in front of him. He doesn’t dare look up from the spot where his eyes are fixated because he’s afraid of what he’ll see.“It’ll only get lonelier from here.”or the one where the boys grow up in the killjoy universe and try not to die.





	1. ONE

“Awsten…” he heard a voice say. It sounded almost like a whisper except for the way it echoed through his skull and made his skin itch. His heart was racing and he was trying to leave, trying to get away from him, but his limbs were weak and he almost tripped over every step.

“I got rid of you years ago, leave me the fuck alone,” he said, trying to mask the desperation in his voice as he tried to get away from the house. The walls felt like they were closing in on him, the white paint chipping away from the edges where they closed in towards the floor.

“You can never get away from me, dearest. I've been with you from the day you were born and I won't leave until I finish the job we were born to do,” he said coyly, the smirk on his non-existent face plastering itself into every corner of Awsten's— of Crybaby's— mind. He kept running through endless corridors until he came across two doors at the end of one of them. He could feel the other coming closer to finding him and he knew he couldn't turn back. He grasped one of the door handles and threw himself into the room.

The room was entirely silent save for Crybaby's rapid breathing. There was no light coming from any direction and he was beginning to regret plunging himself into complete darkness. He took a step forward, hearing his boots splash into an unknown liquid. He couldn't speculate without his fear growing, so he kept moving forward. He continued on his path tentatively, slowing down whenever he'd felt like he stepped on something. He only stopped walking after he ran into a wall. He hesitantly ran his hands over a cold surface that didn't feel like a regular wall and more like a sheet of glass.

“One day you'll see that the two of us aren't so different,” the voice said directly into his left ear. Candles surrounding the room came to life and revealed where Crybaby had been walking. There were body parts strewn across the concrete floors and he felt sick, realizing the slick feeling from under his boots had come from the blood of the limbs. There were flowers and flower petals sprinkled on and around all of them, and even more seemed to make up the walls of the room. He couldn't tell what colors they were due to the yellow glow of the candlelight. He swallowed harshly when he saw the voice's owner standing behind him. The two of them looked like the exact same person, save for the giant pair of blue glasses on the other's face, dark lenses covering his yellow eyes.

“I'm nothing like you.”

The other smiles and chuckles ominously.

“Keep telling yourself that.” 

He snaps his fingers and Crybaby wakes up in a cold sweat.

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

“Are you sure you’re okay, C?” World Devastator asks the following morning when the team is gearing up for the day. The trio had been contacted by a duo of killjoys who informed them that a couple of S/C/A/R/Brown/R/O/W units would be surveilling Zone 3 for the day. Crybaby was exhausted due to the fact that he hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep after he woke up from his nightmare. The team decided leaving their home for the day was the best idea as to not draw any unwanted attention to their safe place.

“Yeah, I just didn’t sleep very well,” he says as he tightens the belt around his hips. He stifles a yawn and shoves his ray gun into the holster that’s strapped around his upper thigh. World Devastator looks at him, concern obvious in his expression, but he knew that Crybaby wouldn’t accept any help he offered. New Wave was weaving around the base, storing things away under floor tiles and in nooks and crannies that he prayed to the Witch no one would find. Crybaby and World Devastator heavily relied on everything New Wave did in order to keep the three of them safe, even if both of them would never admit it to him. 

“Are you two ready to run?” New Wave asks as he carefully finishes repositioning the ceiling tiles of the largest room in the building. World Devastator is shoving his bedroll into a hole in one of the walls as Crybaby leans against the back wall of the room, yawning and rubbing his eyes. He gives New Wave a thumbs up before he takes a deep breath and sighs.

“Yeah, we should-” He’s cut off by his own yawn, his eyes watering like crazy before he continues, “Get going.”

New Wave looks at him as if he’s going to say something but is immediately cut off when they hear something screeching to a halt outside. Suddenly, Crybaby doesn’t feel as tired anymore. He looks between New Wave and World Devastator before he puts his hand up to his mouth and mimes zipping it shut. World Devastator nods and goes to grab his raygun off of an overturned crate towards the back of the building. New Wave tiptoes closer and closer to the entrance of the building, Crybaby doing his best to stay close behind him in case he needs back up. A flash of bright white zooms past his ear, a sharp ringing replacing all of his hearing for a moment. He swears under his breath when he realizes there are multiple Draculoids outside of the building.

He drops to the floor and rolls over to the other side of the doorway, glancing outside every couple of seconds while he tries not to shoot aimlessly at the Dracs surrounding the building. New Wave is doing the same, his back against the door frame as he peeks his head out from behind the wall, taking out two of the eight Dracs the first couple times around. Crybaby manages to take out another two before his gun jams up.

“Damn it!” he yells, dropping to his knees and banging the ray gun against the ground. He’d talked to New Wave recently about wanting to go to Tommy Chow Mein’s place to try and pick up a new gun. If his prices were too outrageous (as they almost always were), they could just look for one of the BL/I vending machines and smash it to pieces to get one of the guns that were guaranteed to be inside of it. He finally managed to get the stupid gun working after hitting it on the ground more times than he probably should’ve. He turned back to the firefight and got a few more shots in before he heard New Wave hiss beside him. He’d been shot in the shoulder on his dominant side and couldn’t use his gun anymore.

“FUCK!” Crybaby yelled. He fired off a few more shots before turning to New Wave to try and ask if he was okay. More shots whizzed by his face and he was forced to turn his attention back to the Dracs who continued to shoot at them. By some miracle, he managed to take out three more of them, leaving the total number of them at one. _One Drac will be easy_ , he thought silently as he leaned against the wall next to the doorframe. It was only when he turned back that he saw New Wave outside, trying to get close enough to ghost the Drac himself.

What happened next felt like it happened in slow motion. He lurched forward to go after New Wave when a Drac he hadn’t seen earlier came around the side of the building and raised his gun, aiming toward New Wave who was too busy chasing the other Drac down. He shot at the new Drac but it was too late. The Draculoid had already pulled the trigger of his own ray gun before Crybaby could. He managed to get the Draculoid square in its jaw, the force of the ray gun blast launching him a few inches back. But he saw as the other shot hit New Wave directly in the back of his neck. In his state of anger, he shot at the escaping Drac until one of his shots hit it in the back of the head. Only when he knew all of them were dead did he let himself scramble over to New Wave’s body. Other than the intense waves of heat that radiated from the nape of his neck, you wouldn’t have been able to tell anything was wrong with him.

Crybaby pulled his friend’s head into his lap and untied the blue mask that concealed his features, setting it down gently next to his knee in the deeply contrasting red sand. He could’ve easily been sleeping from the way his eyes were fluttered shut. He sat there for a few seconds, his heart beating slowly in his chest until he heard World Devastator come out from the back of the building, the other seeing the carnage of the firefight that had just taken place before letting it all out.

He screamed out the pain of someone who'd just lost a brother to the vicious machine that was Better Living Industries. He didn’t hide the tears that rolled down his face under his mask and forced him to stay true to his name.


	2. TWO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the funeral.

The Poet wakes with a start.

His heart is pounding in his chest and his ears are ringing. He swallows harshly and turns to a concerned looking Reaper who’s sitting to the right of him. Earlier in the day, he’d told The Reaper to contact all the gangs in Zone 3 to warn them about the inevitable arrival of SCARECROW Squads throughout the day. He wanted to make sure he knew about every single battle, so he found an empty house on the outskirts of Zone 2 and hunkered down inside of it with The Reaper keeping guard while he dreamed. 

His visions had skipped around as he saw killjoys winning firefights against the Draculoids, reassuring him that there would only be minimal casualties. During the last of the visions he saw a familiar face through the eyes of killjoy he must’ve known. Crybaby, another killjoy he’d made The Reaper contact, was on his knees across the doorframe from his line of vision. He was bashing his ray gun against the ground and yelling things that The Poet couldn’t hear over the firefight going on between the two of them and the group of Draculoids. Whoever they were, ran out of the building after the majority of the Dracs had been ghosted and was almost immediately shot through the back of their neck. The Poet feels the heat from the ray gun blast spread at the base of his neck for a split second before he woke up.

“What’s wrong?” The Reaper asks, resting a hand on The Poet’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him down.

He’s sweating profusely and he feels like he can’t breathe, the fear of what just happened to one of the Lucky People consuming his thoughts. 

“I think we need to go see the Lucky People,” The Poet says, pushing the blanket off of his body.

The Reaper nods and pushes himself up from the floor, following The Poet outside of the building after he hides his bedroll under an empty crate. Both of them walk outside and The Reaper gets on a motorcycle the two of them managed to steal during their last raid in Battery City. The Reaper took his helmet off of the left side of the handlebars and put it on his head after pulling down his hood. The Poet knew he shouldn’t have slowed down at the moment, but it was rare when he saw The Reaper’s whole face in broad daylight. He grabs his own helmet from the other side of the handlebars and takes a couple of seconds to pull off his mask and store it inside of his jacket. As soon as his own helmet is on his head, he sits on the back of the motorcycle and wraps his arms around The Reaper’s torso.

He still feels a bit sick from the vision he had before he woke up and he leans the side of his face against The Reaper’s back. He hears the engine rev to life under them, the monotonous hum only growing as his partner kicks off from their spot and begins to drive. He thinks about what they’re walking into but doesn’t question the situation as much as he probably should. As much as he’s afraid of what they might find upon their arrival, he knows that the remaining members of the team might need their help.

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

The pair of them pulled up to the gas station where the Lucky People used to live only to find a SCARECROW van outside and ghosted Dracs scattered around the exterior of the building. The Poet got off of the motorcycle and walked cautiously around the outside of the building. He was glad he was a good shot and didn’t have to keep his gun in hand while looking around, opting rather to keep his hand hovering over his thigh holster. He didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary until he rounded the corner to the back of the building, muffled sobbing and the sound of a shovel making themselves known. The Reaper followed him closely and lowered his gun when he heard the exact same thing The Poet did.

“Hello?” The Poet asked in a tentative tone.

He knew the remaining members of the gang were more than likely to be shaken up by the experience and afraid of a secondary raid. He heard the muffled sobs stop almost immediately, the tinny noise of the shovel not ceasing even as they walked closer to see what was going on. They saw World Devastator near a rocky hill behind the gas station with the shovel they’d heard earlier, digging a large hole at the base of it. There was a vaguely human-shaped thing next to him, wrapped in a couple layers of random fabrics.

“What are you doing here?” World Devastator grunted as he continued to shovel away more sand and dirt, trying his best to make a suitable grave for his friend. 

The firefight had only happened an hour earlier and he felt like he’d failed the whole team by letting New Wave die. He couldn’t face The Hauntings and tell them what he let happen, so he continued to shovel, waiting for any kind of response.

“I dreamed about what happened and we came here as soon as we could,” The Poet says as he looks from World Devastator to the ghosted body of New Wave. 

He wishes there was something they could’ve done to minimize the damage or something they could’ve done to have prevented anything happening in the first place. When the grave was deep and wide enough to comfortably fit New Wave inside of it, World Devastator jumped out and did his best to lower his friend in. The Reaper went around to the other side and helped him get the body inside, using the looser pieces of fabric as a way to brace New Wave’s legs on the way in.

“Where’s Crybaby?” The Poet said looking around, not wanting to stare at his boyfriend and World Devastator bury one of their own for any longer than he had to.

World Devastator was tucking the loose bits of fabric under New Wave’s body and covering his boots up with one last piece. Finally, he watched as the aforementioned killjoy placed New Wave’s mask on the center of what The Poet assumed was his chest. He heard World Devastator say a quiet prayer to the Witch over New Wave’s body before pulling the mask back out and tucking a couple of brightly colored cards between the binding of the body along with some little figurines from his pocket. When he was done, The Poet watched as the other two covered the body up with the orangey-red sand that always managed to consume everything else in the desert. 

“I’ll be right back,” World Devastator said, standing up from pushing the sand back over New Wave’s body and running over to the building.

The Poet swallowed harshly and moved over to where The Reaper was standing and held his hand. They knew how difficult it was to lose a part of their gang, and how difficult it would be for the Lucky People to try and carry on without New Wave. The situation was bringing back a lot of painful memories for The Poet and he couldn’t help but think it must’ve been the same way for The Reaper.

“Are you okay, Ben?” The Poet asked gently, holding one of The Reaper’s hands in both of his own.

The Poet never pulled out real names unless the situation called for it. The Reaper’s tough exterior softens for a second and he brings The Poet in for a hug, tightly wrapping his arms around the other. The Reaper isn’t much taller than The Poet but he’s at the perfect height to kiss the other on the cheek without having to bend down at all. The Poet tucks his head into the crook of The Reaper’s neck and allows them to just stand there for a while.

“I miss them… Foley and Ali,” he says quietly, his unusual accent catching their names in a strange way. 

The Poet sounded enough like an American that he never had to disguise his original speaking voice but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of The Hauntings. Before it was just the two of them, there had been two other killjoys who’d both hailed from the UK as well. The Poet can’t remember it as well now, but they’d all grown up in the same area before the rise of BL/I. Battery City had been the most well-established area in the entire world save for some of the larger cities that began to pop up globally. They’d been on a trip to see the facilities of Battery City in the United States when the first bombs had been dropped. Everything that would happen to them in the coming years was all things they wanted to forget.

“I miss them too, but we have to keep going… lingering makes things harder,” The Poet says pulling back, misty eyes more than noticeable to The Reaper.

The Poet kisses him quickly before they both turn to the sound of boots crunching in the sand. A devastated looking Crybaby is following World Devastator out of the gas station. The Poet can see that he’s holding something, but he can’t quite tell what it is from the distance. Crybaby doesn’t really acknowledge The Poet or The Reaper when he walks past and kneels at the spot where New Wave has been buried. He sets a rock on a ledge in the hill that’s right above the grave that The Poet is sure has something written on it. Crybaby looks up at The Hauntings before he stands and nods solemnly, almost as if thanking them for showing up to see if everything was okay even though it was too late by the time of their arrival. Crybaby walks away from the grave, World Devastator following him back around the building. 

The Poet gets a closer look at the rock when he hears the other killjoys start their car and drive off into the desert.

‘Here lies New Wave, the strongest member of the Lucky People.’

Under the main words that are written, The Poet spies the letters ‘G.D.W’. He doesn’t know what they mean and he doesn’t think he deserves to know. The whole situation makes him grateful for the fact that he still has The Reaper in his life after the raid that got Foley and Ali ghosted. He swallows a lump in his throat and hugs his boyfriend again.

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave comments and kudos, im doing my best xo


	3. THREE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the escape.

World Devastator and Crybaby pull up to the hideout that belongs to the Horrible Kids but don’t immediately get out of the car. Crybaby is leaning against the window and hiding his face behind his arm, with World Devastator listening to his friend’s quiet sobs. He wants to reach over to try and comfort him in some way, but he can’t bring himself to. He knows what happened isn’t something either of them will be able to get over quickly, but trying to reduce Crybaby’s reaction and suppress his grief isn’t something he thinks he can do. 

He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans back. He doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with the death of New Wave, and he knows that when the realization finally hits him he’ll be a wreck. He remembers how they first met when they both lived in the city, and how locking eyes with Geoff for the first time made something inside his chest tug. Otto thinks he was probably thirteen when he met Geoff in school.

The two of them had met after Otto had tested into a subsect of the SCARECROW training squadron. He had excelled in the martial arts portion of the physical test and surprised nearly everyone, no one being aware that he practiced any kind of self-defense in his spare time. Geoff had been extremely proficient in sharpshooting, his skills with a raygun only being mirrored by squadron members nearly three times his own age. They hadn’t interacted much unless they were taking fitness tests or eating lunch in the shared cafeteria, but it was enough for them to build an in-school friendship. It was after a few months of this kind of interaction before they began making plans to meet outside of school, usually walking around parks and holding uninteresting conversations until the day Geoff showed up outside of Otto’s house in the middle of the night. The initial shock of it all had been enough for Geoff to persuade Otto in joining him while going to an underground club deep within the heart of the Slums. Otto supposed he’d always been a ‘Goody Two-Shoes’ before he’d met Geoff, but his personality had changed the longer he was around the other boy.

When they made it inside of the club, Otto’s senses were bombarded by loud sounds and bright lights. Geoff offered him some kind of drink in a brightly colored cup and he chose to trust him, knowing his closest friend wouldn’t do anything to purposefully hurt him. He drank the contents and within a few minutes, everything in the club magnified in an indescribable type of way. 

The lights and music were almost unbearable and caused a sharp pain in the back of his brain. Geoff swore up and down that he would be okay if he drank from another cup. He accepted it, a little more tentative after the side effects of the last one, downing it rather quickly. He felt better after drinking that cup and the visuals and noises of the club became bearable. He was able to pick out the hum of people talking around him and the slight shake that came with the loud sounds within the building. He saw people around him making strange faces and noises he’d never really seen before. They looked similar to the smiles from the teachers he’d had for the last couple of years, but there was something different about them… something real. He also saw as people brought their faces and bodies together to connect. He couldn’t describe the dull throb in his chest as he watched them do it from the corner of his eyes, but could only think that maybe subconsciously that’s what he wanted. He’d never experienced something like it and was mesmerized by all of it until Geoff tugged on his hand and led him outside, telling him he wanted to show him one more place before he had to take him home.

They climbed up a maintenance ladder on the side of a dilapidated building, one that didn’t feel like it belonged inside the city due to its obvious age. He knew how much it contrasted from the vision Better Living Industries held, and how much they probably despised its existence.

“What was all that?” Otto asked looking over the city, bright lights from the opposite side casting an intense glow on his face. It was shocking seeing the clear divide between the darkness of the slums and the glaring colorless side of Battery City, the side for people who could afford a ‘better’ life.

“I found out about that place a year ago when I met a killjoy in the Slums. I was walking back from Cell Station D3 after I fell asleep on the monorail and... I met a kid our age with the craziest hair I’d ever seen. I guess his parents were expecting him to be at the club soon so instead of leaving me to go tell my own parents, he brought me along. He gave me the same drinks that I gave you tonight and wiped the mood stabilizers from my system and I’d never felt so alive… I wanted to show you the same thing,” Geoff said resting his head on his knees. As Otto looked at him, he realized how brilliantly Geoff’s eyes shone in the reflection of the city’s lights and realized how they actually had a color. He looked down at his own hands and was greeted with the same realization. He wondered if everything in the city would be similar if he looked at it, fresh eyes and a new outlook sparking an intense curiosity he’d never experienced before.

“I guess I just wanted to show you before I left.”

“Left? Where are you going?” Otto asked, turning his head to the other, confusion on his face evident. Geoff smiled sadly and picked at a fray in his pants that Otto would’ve never noticed earlier on in the night.

“I’m going to go out into the desert, I just… I can’t stay here anymore,” he says using his hands to push himself up from the concrete of the roof. Otto immediately followed suit and trailed behind Geoff, who walked silently and solemnly.

“You can’t just leave me here after showing me that! How am I supposed to live with knowing that there’s more to life than hunting terrorists and going home and doing nothing until I’m old enough to… breed,” he says with his eyebrows screwing up at the thought. That’s how it had been taught to them from a young age, although the thought of ‘breeding’ had never made him feel odd until he was able to really think about what that meant. He knew animals were bred with each other to create more of a certain species but Otto didn’t feel like an animal. He didn’t want to be an animal.

“Otto, I’m going out to the desert! I can’t just drag you into the life of a fugitive,” Geoff said turning around to him. His eyes looked more hurt than angry and Otto discerned that Geoff was afraid of what was going to happen.

“Look, I’ve only known about this stuff for, what,” he looked at the wristwatch on his arm, seeing that his parents would be around to wake him up sometime in the next thirty minutes, “...Four hours? But I want to know what’s outside of the city. I want to make sure nothing happens to you because you’re my best friend.”

Geoff paused for a moment and looked Otto up and down. Otto knew physically he would be just as well off as Geoff, if not better due to his extensive knowledge of martial arts, but Geoff knew what to expect going into the desert. He sighed and said something under his breath that Otto couldn’t quite catch before he nodded.

“Okay fine, you can come to the desert with me but you’ll have to leave everything in the city behind. Your name, the way you look now, your family, everything. We can’t have any traces of the person you are now crossing over into the person you’re going to be once we’re out of here.”

Otto swallowed harshly upon hearing how serious all of it was. But, truthfully, he was willing to give it all up if it meant he got to see more of what was out in the world.

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please validate me


	4. FOUR

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> please believe you'll be a a dream catcher.

Dream Catcher had been in the front room when he heard a car pull up outside. He was being extra cautious today, advising Mr. Miserable to stay in the back with the new kid while he kept watch in the front. By all means, their base was pretty hard to find but it didn’t stop the occasional SCARECROW Squad from finding evidence of it. The easy part was ghosting them all, and the harder part was dragging their corpses into the vans and driving them far away from the base. Of course, there was always the chance that the car that just pulled up was one of the gangs they’d disclosed their location to. He heard the two others in the back go silent as there was no noise outside for a couple solid minutes. Dream Catcher listened as two car doors slammed shut outside and footsteps made their way over to the entrance of the hideout. He swallowed his fear and inched closer to the door, his hand already over the hilt of his gun. A sniffle came from the other side of the door and was shortly followed by a series of loud raps on the wood door that was covered in some kind of strange cooling material the gang had found earlier in the year after a raid in the city. 

Dream Catcher finally stood at his full height, the low ceiling of the base about 5 inches away from the top of his head. He got closer before opening the door and drawing his gun in a split second. He was face to face with a grim looking World Devastator and a red-eyed Crybaby who was wiping tears off of his face.

“Oh, it’s only you two,” he said with a sigh, shoving his gun back into its holster and backing away from the door. It was pretty obvious the two of them were a little bent out of shape and down and out about something. World Devastator would’ve been smiling if something wasn’t up, and Crybaby cracking jokes about Dream Catcher’s blue hair. Mr. Miserable came out from the back trailed by the new kid, only nodding at the arrival of World Devastator and Crybaby. 

“Why are you guys here anyway?” Dream Catcher asks, still confused as to why two members of another gang showed up on their doorstep. He didn’t mind helping under normal circumstances, but the remainder of his own gang was currently searching for the other half of their ranks. Wicked Melody and Glass Philosopher had gone missing the week before after meeting up with another gang to help out with a firefight in their vicinity. Mr. M and Dream Catcher had been insistent that they shouldn’t have gone out, the risk of them disappearing was high due to the growing bounty on their heads. World Devastator pursed his lips as Crybaby’s sobs got stronger and wracked his body. Dream Catcher had never seen him so devastated and finally took into account that only two of the three Lucky People were present.

“We’re here because uh… there was a raid on our base today and New Wave didn’t make it,” World Devastator said quietly before turning back to Crybaby who was crying uncontrollably. It was difficult to watch as someone Dream Catcher had known since his youth was in so much mental pain due to one of his closest friends getting ghosted. Dream Catcher was afraid of the day where he lost one of his own for good, and seeing the toll on his friends didn’t make him feel any better about the situation, especially with Glass Philosopher and Wicked Melody still missing.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could offer. He’d lost his dad a few years earlier when he was still young, when he still depended on his parents for everything from food to shelter to companionship. He doesn’t know how old he was, estimating that he was probably twelve or thirteen. He couldn’t remember the city after living in the desert for so long, but his mother had told him he had been born within it’s sterile, bleached walls.

“The day you were born, the Earth shook and the sun broke through the walls of the city. It was beautiful and shone through the cracks in the wall,” she would tell him at night, stroking his hair as the fire his father tended to crackled beside them. He’d always thought she had been making up a tall tale, a comforting story that made Dream Catcher feel like the most special kid in the world. Later on, when he was much older, he’d found archived video broadcasts that detailed an earthquake on January 9th, 2006. The broadcast had later stated it left significant damage to the walls of Battery City, allowing the elements of the Zones to enter the city.

“You were my dream because when you were born, you didn’t cry. The doctors of the city had thought you were a miracle because you were well behaved but I wasn’t proud of that. I was proud because I always knew you would grow up to do wonderful things, you were the reason I knew we had to leave,” she said with a warm smile. She wrapped her arms around him and held him as he fell asleep on one of the few blankets they had, looking at the stars as he drifted off.

His father was very different from his mother, but it didn’t mean Dream Catcher loved him any less. He was a bit more independent, he would leave for a few days at a time to get supplies for his family, but whenever he came home he’d spend as much time as he could with his wife and son. Dream Catcher had looked up to him in awe for all of those years, even in the present crediting his father for being his main source of inspiration to finish off Better Living Industries once and for all. 

Dream Catcher didn’t see his father die. He doesn’t know how he would’ve handled it if he had, but knowing his father was gone was still the hardest thing he had to cope with at a young age. His mother refused to leave their shack for days, feeling too heartbroken to do anything other than mourn the loss of her one true love. After a handful of days, she took him to visit the Marketplace, a region notorious for its pop-up shops and zonerunners who all sold various wares. She found old friends of his father's who offered to take him in and teach him everything a killjoy needed to know- everything his father never had the chance to teach him before his death. He would stay with them for long stretches of time, and when they knew he had mastered certain aspects of being a good fighter, they returned him home for a few days to see his mother.

“I missed you so much this last time, it’s gotten so quiet and lonely out here,” she once said with a sad smile gracing her features. She hadn’t seen her son in months and was more than happy to have him in her little shack, cooking him a couple of rare treats that she always saved for his homecomings. Unbeknownst to her, his homecoming would be his last before he split off from his teachers and his mom, knowing it was time for him to start looking for his own group of killjoys to lead. He hadn’t brought it up to her yet, knowing that as soon as he took up an alter ego that it would become more and more difficult for him to come back and visit. He couldn’t bear the thought of putting her in danger and having her meet the same fate as his father. He swallowed harshly as he heard her humming softly, a sweet melody that lulled him back into memories of his childhood. 

He sat with her and ate, savoring the delicacies of the desert she managed to pull together before he returned. He chewed the sweet and savory dishes she’d taken hours to prepare as he’d been on his way over. It was all bittersweet, knowing his mother’s love would always outweigh any hardships he’d face in the future, but also knowing he couldn’t come home until Better Living Industries was defeated once and for all. _Only then can we live safely_ , he thought solemnly, the last of his appetite disappearing as he mentally prepared himself to tell her the less than exciting news.

He cleared his throat and pushed his tin plate further into the center of the table. His breathing slowly became unstable, the sheer emotion of everything making the situation so much harder to deal with.

“Ma, I have to tell you something,” he choked out. He’d never been one to hide how he felt, his parents encouraging him to opt out of a stoic exterior. They’d told him of people in the city being forced to be unfeeling by the pills, the whole explanation making Dream Catcher more comfortable with showing his true colors.

“What is it Cody?” she asked, her eyebrows furrowing as she saw her son's face show a brief flash of despair. Her parental instincts kicked in as soon as she saw it. She never wanted her son to feel any pain but in the end, it was inevitable, it was a feeling as natural as happiness, sadness, anger and everything in between.

“I know this might be sudden, but I… I think I’m ready to go out on my own and start my own killjoy gang.”

The edges of her eyes softened and filled with warm tears. She’d always known the day would come when her only son would want to follow in the footsteps of his father and take on the life of a desert vigilante. Her husband had been one of the bravest people she’d ever known, and she knew deep down her son was the exact same way. Soft sobs wracked her body and she covered her face, a dinner that was supposed to be joyful taking a sour turn.

“Don’t cry, ma,” Cody said standing up from his chair and circling around the small table to her side, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. It was beyond difficult seeing his mother so upset but at the end of the day, he knew he had to leave and become a killjoy. Fighting for everyone’s emotional and physical freedom was his dream, and it was the dream of his father who raised him never to back down from seeing to a day where BL/I was destroyed.

“I always knew this day would come, I just didn’t think it would be so soon,” she said after the tears stopped rolling. She knew she would never truly lose her son, his fighting spirit would keep him going for as long as he was alive. That night she helped him prepare the same way she did her husband before he was ghosted in a firefight gone wrong. She packed a bag with basic necessities like a water bottle, some matches, and twine. She’d always believed wholeheartedly in the legends of the Phoenix Witch, her story of traveling the desert to put the souls of killjoys to rest reassured her when Cody’s father had passed away. This belief caused her to pack a couple pieces of blank paper, some homemade envelopes, and an old pencil from before the family’s escape from the city walls.

It was the next morning when they said their goodbyes. Cody had already pulled his mask over his eyes before he turned to her, her aged misty eyes locking with his as she blinked back the memory of eyes just as familiar, eyes that belonged to someone she once held so dearly. Dream Catcher held back an ocean of tear until he was just out of earshot of his mother, the floodgates breaking when he knew he couldn’t turn back.

_You were my dream because when you were born, you didn’t cry. The doctors of the city had thought you were a miracle because you were well behaved but I wasn’t proud of that. I was proud because I always knew you would grow up to do wonderful things, you were the reason I knew we had to leave…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos + comments, lads


	5. FIVE

The Poet was used to having nightmares about his life before the zones. Before he was The Poet, back before Hostage Heart and Cheap Shot were ghosted, he was Terrible Brother. The story behind the name was a painful one, a story of a betrayal he would never get over even if his sister never remembered who he was after the Retinal Resort staff upped her prescriptions once Patty disappeared from her life.

Every so often he’d get glimpses of her, growing up with their robotic parents who were too far gone to try and rescue. He watched painfully as she stiffly marched to a gravesite that he’d grown to recognize as his own. He’d left the city years before when a group of killjoys broke in and blew up a part of the monorail near the stop closest to his house. It had given him the perfect opportunity to escape through one of the clubs in the Slums. Rachel had already gotten home from school when it happened and Patty knew he didn’t have time to go back and bring her back out to the desert. So now he was forced to watch as her otherwise icy exterior melted as she stared at his grave, tracing the letters with a finger. He didn’t know who or what his parents decided to bury in place of his missing body, and he didn’t want to know. He couldn’t remember what being on the pills was like, so he couldn’t truly imagine what she felt as she looked at the grave.

Of course, after a certain amount of time she’d leave and go home, but today felt different to any other time he’d seen her in his dreams. Her eyes got softer and softer, taking on a misty appearance and much to Patty’s surprise, she began crying. Patty knew his visions only showed him events that were certain to happen, but he also knew Rachel to have always taken her prescriptions. Eventually, the shock of the situation woke him up with a start. He bolted up from under his blanket and was greeted with a pitch black room. His breathing was uncontrolled and he heard a sigh from beside him.

The Reaper sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He couldn’t see The Poet, but felt the blanket get pulled off of him once the other sat up where he had been sleeping. He knew it must’ve been a nightmare or dream of some kind that had caused him to wake.

“What did you see, love?” The Reaper asked with heavy lids and a raspy voice. The Poet felt guilty, waking his partner up at such an inconvenient time. He swallowed and was about to say that it was nothing important when he started talking without thinking.

“I saw Rachel in the graveyard. She’s off her medication.”

He was worried what would become of his younger sister if any officials found out she wasn't taking her medicine, but he also wanted to cry out of relief of knowing that she was able to finally see the world for what it was. The news must’ve come as a shock to The Reaper who was completely silent.

“We have to go to the city and get her out of there,” The Poet said turning to The Reaper. When there were still four of them, the idea had always been to get back into the city for a day and rescue as many of their loved ones as they could, the ones who still had the hope of being saved. After Foley and Ali were ghosted, The Poet had found out that all of their family members had either gone missing or had their memories wiped and were moved into different Draculoid units. The Reaper had later informed The Poet that his ex-girlfriend had been promoted to one of the highest ranks of the SCARECROW units, making the only person he wanted to save unattainable. The last of those the gang had wanted to save was The Poet’s younger sister and only sibling. She was nine years old the last time he had seen her, and he couldn’t be sure how much time had passed since he left the city for the desert. 

“It's not even daylight, love. We can always wait to makes plans for getting her out until the morning,” The Reaper said in his sleepy drawl, his familiar accent lulling The Poet back into a calm mindset. He laid back down, scooting his body up against the curve of The Reaper's, the other's long straw colored hair tickling his cheek as he did his best to get comfortable on their shared bedroll. His mind raced, wondering how they'd manage to get in and out of the city on their own, looking the way they did. Years of living in the desert left them both extremely tanned and occasionally sunburned, an obvious giveaway to anyone who lived inside of Battery City that they weren't locals. Of course, The Reaper was right, they could wait until the morning to flesh their plan out and maybe even ask other gangs they knew for help. He didn’t want to dwell on it for any longer than he had to. In a few hours it would be morning and then he could think about what they needed to get done but for now, he knew he needed more sleep.

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

 

When The Poet woke, he couldn't feel any traces of The Reaper behind him. It wasn’t unusual for him to wake up in the morning and for his boyfriend to already be up and working on things like scrounging up breakfast, or tinkering their bike but there was always a dull throb in his heart and a few seconds of fear. He knows it all started when Cheap Shot and Hostage Heart died in a drac raid years before. The Hauntings had consisted of four members before the eldest two in the quartet were ghosted. Then Terrible Brother and Screaming Salvation, The Poet and The Reaper decided to reinvent who they were before it all because the team could never be the same without the two members they had lost. He pushed himself up from the blankets that surrounded him on the ground, stumbling a bit when the arm he had been sleeping on faltered under his weight.

He eventually got up and made his way into the front room only to find a large group of killjoys, including The Reaper. He was too bewildered to say anything and could only stare for a few seconds, the look on his face completely dumbfounded.

“Babe, what’s going on?” he asked, looking directly into The Reaper’s eyes. The Reaper blinked once before he opened his mouth to respond, only to be cut off by- who The Poet assumed to be- Dream Catcher. 

“We’re here to help you rescue your sister!”

The Poet hadn’t seen Dream Catcher in a long time, his shock of bright blue hair was a new detail that hadn’t been present the last time they’d seen each other. Once he processed what Dream Catcher had said, his mouth ran dry. He prayed to the Witch that The Reaper hadn’t told anyone who his sister was.

“Dearest, can you come back here? I think we need to talk,” he said after clearing his throat. He hated having to confront The Reaper. He knew his boyfriend had nothing but good intentions in his heart when he planned things without The Poet, but his anxiety blew through the roof whenever he had no say in any of the matters concerning his life. He watched as The Reaper stood up from where he’d been sitting and crossed the floor, looking mildly regal as he held his head high in front of the others in the house. The Poet knew it was a tactic to cover up his anxiety and fears of displeasing his significant other.

The Poet led him into the backroom before closing the door and sighing loudly.

“Ben, I wanted to take time making plans, I didn’t just want to-”

“I admit that it was a spur of the moment thing, and for that I apologise, but they need to get into the city, too. And by the sound of it, they need in as soon as possible,” The Reaper said looking into The Poet’s eyes, having stepped forward and taking the other’s hands into his own. The Poet searched within The Reaper’s desperate eyes, looking for any signs of wavering confidence. When nothing came of it, he dropped his head and sighed again.

“Okay, we can plan a raid for sometime in the next few days but we need to be as careful as humanly possible. If I have to risk my life for Rachel to be free from that prison… so be it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you like this,,,,,,, please leave kudos and comments, thanks


	6. SIX

Crybaby knew he couldn’t tell the others about Felony Steve.

He’d always felt the presence of whatever Steve was since he was a child growing up in the zones. His parents had known of Steve’s existence as Crybaby would oftentimes blackout, only to wake up in front of his parents who looked utterly flabbergasted. He didn’t meet the other until much later in his life, what felt like ages after his childhood.

He had been home alone, waiting for his parents to return from a raid when he drifted off without any realization he was doing so. When he thought he'd woken up, he found himself bound to a chair in the middle of an empty room, lights dimmed and all features unrecognizable. His hands were tied behind his back and his feet were tied against the legs of the chair. His head felt foggy and that’s when he knew it must’ve been a dream. He heard a slight dripping coming from behind him, whatever was falling collecting in a puddle on the ground. He felt like he was blinking more than he should’ve but he needed to see something in the room ,anything that would absolutely confirm that he was in a dream and not locked in a room by Better Living Industries.

“Oh, this is a dream alright,” a voice said. Crybaby couldn’t pinpoint it or attach it to any one part of the room. He looked around as much as he could, not being able to turn his head around fully due to the restraints that contained his body.

“Who’s there?” he’d asked, praying to the Witch that his voice didn’t waver too much and give away the fear he felt. Even then the sensation was obvious, the terror of the situation rushing out of him in waves that only seemed to fuel Steve.

“I know you’re afraid of me, Awsten,” the voice said right behind his ear, the ghost of a smirk ever present in his smug voice. Crybaby swallowed harshly and screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to find out what was in the room with him, but he knew whatever it was wasn’t human. 

“I am not!” he yelled, hoping the assertive tone in his voice would stop Felony Steve from trying to intimidate him. His parents would do the same thing whenever he defied their instructions during dangerous situations, or if he wandered to close to the city when they visited Tommy Chow Mein’s place or the travelling caravans for various kinds of supplies they couldn’t find in Zone 3.

“Your voice says one thing yet… your body says another, how very brave of you to try and deny the primordial fear all you humans are born with,” the voice says, circling him in a mocking matter because Crybaby knew that Steve knew that he wouldn’t open his eyes unless something went bad. It wasn’t uncommon for Felony Steve to taunt Crybaby in a way that never harmed him, because at the end of the day Crybaby knew Steve wouldn’t let any physical harm come to his host. Crybaby didn’t even know what Felony Steve was.

“Back before you were even a thought in your parent’s mind, I was already at work making sure you were perfect for the both of us. You were the host chosen out of millions of other people and without the ancient ones deciding you were to be the host, your parents would’ve never been spared,” Steve said viciously, getting closer and closer to each of Crybaby’s ears, the heat of his breath sending shivers down Crybaby’s spine.

“What does this all mean? Why… why me?” he asks, his voice getting smaller as an intense feeling of sadness washes over him and dampens all of the hope he’s ever had for the future.

“You will lose everything and have all of the things you love destroyed before you can know your true worth and we can take our rightful place among the likes of The Starmasters, The Cobra… The Witch.”

The feelings of melancholy don’t fade and make Crybaby feel like curling up into a ball and sleeping forever. He thinks about the remorseful tone that was carried in Felony Steve’s voice and it dawns on him that he’s not the only one who’s going to suffer in their shared situation. As bad as Crybaby feels must only be amplified for Steve who has to carry on long after Crybaby has met his end.

“It must be lonely,” Crybaby says, opening his eyes to see a pair of legs in front of him. He doesn’t dare look up from the spot where his eyes are fixated because he’s afraid of what he’ll see.

“It’ll only get lonelier from here.”

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

Crybaby is resting with his head on his knees when The Poet asks The Reaper to speak with him in the back. Dream Catcher had woken him up before the sun had risen and told the others that The Reaper had sent a message out asking for any killjoys in The Hauntings general area if they could help with a secret mission that had yet to be disclosed. The Lucky People, Horrible Kids and The Hauntings had all met under similar circumstances years before and managed to keep in contact for the years following. Crybaby supposed the only differences now were that half of The Hauntings were ghosted, half of the Horrible Kids had gone missing, and New Wave was gone. He also managed to look on the brighter side of things by taking into consideration the newest killjoy among their ranks who was currently staying with the Horrible Kids while they still had room. He’d stayed awake with the new kid all night a few days before trying to help him find a suitable name until he eventually settled on Cyber Obscura.

“Back before the war or anything, there were all of these old artifacts and one of them was called a camera obscura,” Cyber had said, drawing a box shape in the sand and doodling in smaller details like a primitive lens and other things that he took the time to explain to Crybaby.

“The light would enter through the front side of the box and project the image of whatever was on the other side on some type of board and over exposure would eventually imprint whatever the image was onto the board, I think.”

Crybaby had never lived in the city and had no clue what the other was talking about, but he could tell that whatever it was, Cyber Obscura was highly interested in it. Crybaby knew that he was probably a bit younger, not by much, but still naive from years of living in the city to not be nearly as hardened by the desert life that eventually all became accustomed to. He also thought it was nice to take his mind off of New Wave for the first time since he was ghosted. The mostly one-sided conversation being enough to vaguely teach him about things he would’ve known otherwise and the heaviest parts of his personal grief being less important than helping Cyber Obscura fit in with the other desert dwellers.

Crybaby could say he’d never seen anyone quite like Cyber come out of the city before. He thought he knew exactly what every zombie from the city looked like but them again… there was no way he could’ve pictured Cyber Obscura as a zombie of any kind. Of course Crybaby was bound to notice some of the things that made him stand out from other killjoys like the way introducing himself wasn’t quite ingrained in his mind yet, or the way he stumbled over the slang everyone else threw around like it was nothing. Of course Crybaby knew this wasn’t a bad thing either, because as much as Cyber was unfamiliar with killjoy culture, he was learning everything he possibly could from lifelong killjoys and others that lead similar lives to his own.

“What do you think they’re talking about back there?” Dream Catcher says, leaning over and barely speaking above a whisper. He’s really close and his breath causes a chill to run down his spine, not because it’s uncomfortable, but because it reminds him a lot of what Steve does when he wants to talk to Crybaby about anything.

“It’s none of our business,” Crybaby says, hoping he doesn’t come off as rude or cold to his friend. He always wonders what people talk about privately, and this occasion is no different. He knows that if Steve feels like telling him there would be no stopping what he had to say. Just as he thinks of Felony Steve, another chill makes his blood run cold, but he knows Dream Catcher isn’t behind him anymore. His body goes rigid and Dream Catcher takes notice, eyeballing the other and definitely taking his odd behavior into consideration before scooting away from him and closer to Mr Miserable who’s deep in a quiet conversation with Cyber Obscura.

“ _They’re talking about saving The Poet’s younger sister from the city… you know how it feels… wanting to make sure your sister is safe from the company…_ ” Steve hisses quietly. He’s right next to the killjoy and Crybaby swears he can see him in his peripheral vision, a shadow looming on the right side of his body. Crybaby nods at his words, trying to be as invisible to the others around him as humanly possible. He thinks of Gracie, his own younger sister who still lives with his parents. He knows she’s getting to the age where she’ll have to choose her own identity and leave their parents for her own killjoy gang. He’s terrified of what that all entails, even though he’d done the same thing when he was her age. He silently wondered what she would do when the time came, if she would join a pre-established gang or if she would create her own, similar to what he did. He still felt Felony Steve’s presence around him and shrunk away from it, scooting closer to the wall.

“Hey Crybaby? What’s going on with you?” Dream Catcher said with a concerned tone seeping into his voice. Just as Crybaby turned to face him with an answer, he saw the disembodied face of someone who looked just like Crybaby. The face was there for a second and cracked a sly smile before it disappeared. Dream Catcher went rigid after looking into the face’s all white eyes, fear taking over his entire train of thought. 

“HOLY FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT,” he said scrambling back into both Mr Miserable and Cyber Obscura who were understandably confused. Crybaby’s face screwed up and he too looked confused, looking around for whatever Dream Catcher had seen. Mr Miserable grumbled in an annoyed way, wonder why his friend was so riled up over nothing (although he assumed the other must’ve seen a bug or a rat).

“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” Mr Miserable ended up saying, pushing Dream Catcher off of his lap and back on the concrete of the floor. When he took a closer look at his friend he realised Dream Catcher was pale and looked like he’d seen a ghost or something. He did think it was odd, but then again even if Dream Catcher had seen anything, it could’ve been because of any random factor.

“There was a, there was a face right next to Crybaby’s and it… it fucking disappeared!” Dream Catcher said in a distressed voice, looking at Mr Miserable with fear evident in his face. To say Mr Miserable was skeptical was an understatement. He never believed in anything or believed anyone unless he saw things manifest themselves to him. He knew Dream Catcher wasn’t a liar, but overheating and dehydration could scramble anyone’s brain, even someone as level headed as the leader of the Horrible Kids. Even in his skepticism, he did believe in certain things that many were surprised to find out about, including and especially his belief in the afterlife and it’s connection to the Phoenix Witch.

Mr Miserable and Dream Catcher both looked at Crybaby who looked as pale as death. His lips were pursed until he began nibbling anxiously on his bottom lip. He whipped his body around and pushed himself up from the ground before walking out of the building. It was one of the rare instances where he knew he had majorly fucked up, and of course he wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it away to Dream Catcher. He knows it’s not a situation where he could blame it as a trick of the light, or as a mirage or something. He acknowledged that Steve had been in the room when he left it.

“Crybaby… We need to talk,” he heard Dream Catcher say as he got closer to him outside. Crybaby was already swallowing what felt like a hot lump of coal, the fear sliding down his throat and burning him from the inside out. He was dreading whatever conversation Dream Catcher wanted to have with him. He was positive it was going to be about Steve, the odd deity that not even Crybaby knew how to describe in words that weren’t ‘demon’, ‘parasite’, or ‘living nightmare’. Truth be told, Steve wasn’t truly as horrible as Crybaby knew he could be. There were times where he’d faced dangerous situations and narrowly avoided death because Felony Steve insisted that Crybaby was far too important to lose.

“About what,” he said simply, keeping his eyes locked to a rock in the far distance, it’s bleached white surface contrasting heavily from the deep red-orange of the desert landscape. It was beautiful to anyone who’d never seen anything quite like it. Crybaby remembers his brief stint as a zonerunner, bringing all potential killjoys into the desert for the first time and showing them what life could be like. _It’s what New Wave had thought too_ , he thinks silently, covering his mouth when he processes the idea, another wave of guilt and grief washing over his being.

“I need to know what that was, I’ve never seen anything like it and it’s just… you don’t need to keep secrets from any of us… you don’t need to keep any secrets from me,” Dream Catcher says as his voice shakes. Crybaby feels awful, and he knows its true. Dream Catcher was the one killjoy he’d known since childhood, the two of them growing up together in the same community where both sets of their parents felt their kids would be safest from the harsh realities that came with living in such a desolate place like the zones. They knew it wasn’t preferable, but anything was better than the city. When they were young, they’d planned on being in a gang together, fighting Better Living Industries side-by-side until they both decided parting ways would be for the best, even if it meant they wouldn't see each other as often anymore.

“I know it’s just… Everything is so fucking messed up right now, Cody,” Crybaby says with hints of distress leaking into his voice, clouding all of his thoughts with uncontrollable emotion. He’s never been very good at hiding his feelings and everything now feels amplified because he’s accidentally revealed one of his deepest secrets without even realising it. Dream Catcher wants to comfort him but he hesitates, his hand that was close to touching Crybaby’s hand pulling back as he reconsiders.

“I get it, but if you want help or need to get any weight off of your shoulders… you have to talk to me, Aws,” he says softly, scooting himself closer to Crybaby and resting his hand on the other’s shoulder. Crybaby leans into Dream Catcher’s touch and he rests his head in the other’s lap, his long lilac hair splaying out and over the dips in Dream Catcher’s jeans. Dream Catcher runs his hands through Crybaby’s hair, starting at the roots where time has allowed for Crybaby’s natural brown hair to grow out nearly an inch in length. It’s an intimate moment between the two of them, Dream Catcher locking eyes with Crybaby and noticing their dual colors. It’s only a few seconds more before he’s leaning down, getting close enough to ghost Crybaby’s lips with his own. It feels like an eternity before he finally closes the space between them entirely, their kiss lasting longer than what would be comfortable for most people.

Neither of them wants the moment to end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos + comments please.


	7. SEVEN

After a few hours of discussion, the killjoys are all getting ready to raid the city, packing into their various vehicles like sardines in a tin. The Horrible Kids pack into the car belonging to the Gloom Boys. World Devastator, Mr Miserable and Cyber Obscura all sitting in the backseat while Crybaby and Dream Catcher occupy the front seats, stealing glances of each other whenever they can. There’s an obvious tension between the two of them but the boys in the back of the car don’t say anything about it, they know that given the circumstances they came together under were difficult, and would be difficult to cope with in the future. 

Mr Miserable can’t help but feel miserable, his mood only shifting to determination when he thinks of what he’s trying to get back from the city. He rummages through the breast pocket in his jacket, a small piece of paper being the only thing inside of it. It’s been there for years, as long as he can remember being with- his train of thought halts as he feels his eyes grow misty and a hot stream of grief drips down the back of his throat. He swallows the emotion back and takes the paper out, unfolding it to reveal a short and hastily written note.

It’s in his boyfriend’s messy scrawl, a gentle reminder that neither of them had grown up with a proper education, the majority of what they’d been taught had been old information relayed through loose textbook pages and their parent’s vague memories. Mr Miserable’s mom had taught him to write at a very young age, showing him how to first write his full name- his given name- and later on simple sentences and basic grammar. From there he was able to learn how to write things for fun, poetry and essays about whatever he wanted them to be about were easy to write. He knows his mom probably held on to all of the strange poems about the sour orange sky he could almost taste on hot summer days when the dracs would melt and acid would rain down in the zones like the Phoenix Witch setting free the tears of every fallen killjoy’s loved ones.

In the end, he was grateful for it, knowing that his parents didn’t have to teach him any of it because he would never have to worry about getting a corporate job or living up to the standards set by those in the city, but they had and it had given him a greater advantage than he could’ve ever hoped for.

He looks at the paper with a lot more care, noting all of the crinkles from the years of being in his pocket, and the years of him taking it out whenever he was on a mission and couldn’t be with who he believed to be his soulmate. He knows the paper probably holds tears and disenchanted memories of fear and feelings that Mr Miserable didn’t want the team to know about. He didn’t want people to think he was weak or couldn’t handle tough situations without breaking down. He knows his walls only ever caved around one person.

_i love you so much._

He reads the paper over and over again, visualising his boyfriend hunched over a piece of paper on a dark night. He remembers it. They used to pass notes whenever the gang found a surplus of paper and whenever their other friends were asleep or off at another camp. There was something he could never quite explain, the strange intimacy that came with writing things out instead of saying them out loud. Of course he would never take back any of his verbal proclamations of love or trade them for anything in the world, but the words written out on paper gave him a tangible example of love. Something that he could feel in his hands and know that it was real, and that none of the emotions he felt were a dream.

It made him feel like Zach wasn’t actually gone.

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

When the group hit Zone Two, they all stopped for a short break before they left the dusty trails of the desert for the one paved road that was visible in all of the Zones. Of course this wasn't before a quick stop in the middle of nowhere, the Gloom Boys finding the Witch’s mailbox to drop a letter and New Wave's mask into. Mr Miserable had gotten out of the car too, silently talking to the radioactive winds that blew across the desert before he dropped his own letter into the mailbox, all of them piling back into the car and following The Hauntings once more. Killjoys tended to avoid the highway as much as they could- bad things always happened on Route Guano if anyone rode it for too long. 

The first to stop was Crybaby, slowing down behind a large red rock that obscured the view of the city’s walls in the distance. World Devastator got out of the car as soon as Crybaby killed the engine, unbuckling his seatbelt and slamming the door shut behind him. He squinted his eyes to see it through the heat waves, it’s immaculate white walls causing a swell of rage to fill him. He can’t stand it, seeing the tangible manifestation of the company that murdered his love. His features go slack and his head falls, wanting to do nothing but curl up into a ball and mourn. He knows he can’t do that, he knows he won't be able to stop the mourning process as soon as it starts. He sniffles and wipes away hot tears that roll down his face. The wet tracks clear old dust and dirt from his face but he doesn’t want anyone to know about his one weakness. He would get even with the company by taking out as many dracs as he could during the mission.

The Reaper and The Poet roll up behind the car a few minutes later, The Reaper turning off the engine while The Poet got off of the bike and took his helmet off. The Poet shook his dark hair out, the majority of it being flattened from an extended timeframe of him wearing his helmet. The Reaper follows suit, getting off of the bike and shaking his long blonde hair out of his own helmet. The other killjoys don’t see his face very often, a few scars from his experiences in the city and from firefights gone bad were scattered and had made him self conscious of his overall appearance. Soon enough, he pulls his hood over his head and walks alongside The Poet towards the rest of the group.

“Everyone knows where they’re supposed to enter the city, yeah?” The Poet asks as the huddle gets smaller in order to see the small map The Reaper has pulled out. They all nod, recalling where their assigned entrance points had been. Every entrance in the city has been circled with crayon, waste pipes being designated for those going to rescue the Horrible Kids being circled in a blue for Mr Miserable to see, and the route for those rescuing The Poet’s sister being circled in a light orange. The group had decided to let both of the present Horrible Kids to go rescue the rest of their team with Crybaby while The Hauntings were with World Devastator and Cyber Obscura. Nearly everyone had been against the Horrible Kids both going incase something went wrong and had lead to both of them being detained and held as hostages, the same as the rest of their team. On the other hand, they had wanted Cyber Obscura to join them on his first mission to the city as a killjoy even though they knew the danger of it. He’d be joining the less high stakes mission meaning there was a less likely chance of him being spotted.

The Poet knew something was up between Mr Miserable and one of the kidnapped Horrible Kids, his angry outburst after being told he couldn’t go was what solidified his suspicion. He knew how difficult it was to be apart from someone you loved and that’s what moved him to let Mr Miserable go with Dream Catcher and Crybaby instead of World Devastator.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is to stick to the plan we made. I know it seems tempting to try and take out as much of BLI as possible while we’re in there, but this is a rescue mission. Take out anyone you need to, anyone who poses a threat to you and your team’s safety but nothing more. We can’t save everyone in there, and we can’t avenge everyone we’ve lost,” The Reaper says, piping in for the first time all day. He tends to stay quiet on most occasions, but this is a topic that needs to be ingrained in everyone’s mind for their own safety. World Devastator’s jaw clenches as he takes the words in. He wants the mission to go smoothly with everyone being safely taken out of the city, but it’s going to be hard. He’s angry. His best friend, his biggest inspiration, his true love had been killed by a ruthless system with no remorse. He swallows harshly and keeps his eyes fixed on the ground. 

Everyone seems to leave the circle for a few minutes to take a bit of a break and get water before they head out for the last time. World Devastator looks back up after kicking a few rocks around to lock eyes with The Reaper. His jaw must’ve shifted again in his anger because The Reaper’s face changes and then he’s getting closer and closer to World Devastator.

“I know it’s going to be hard, but you can’t do anything dangerous on this mission,” he says, his voice soft and remorseful to an outsider’s ear, “New Wave was a great guy, he was dependable and strong… really strong for someone like us, but as much as it hurts… you can’t let the grief jeopardize the lives of three people, one of which is a kid.”

It’s like a punch to the gut, but World Devastator knows he’s right.

♥ ♠ ♣ ♦

The gang stops one more time right outside the walls of the city, separating off into groups before heading to their designated entrance points. They're all nervous as they approach the holes in the security system BLI had everyone believe was perfect and could keep 'terrorists’ out with. Crybaby is always reminded of the Fab Four whenever he's in a situation similar to theirs. 

When he was young, they were the only killjoys anyone ever talked about. The way they'd stood up to the city and inspired countless numbers of people to follow what they believed and leave the city or work towards a better future in the zones had never been matched even years after they'd been ghosted on a rescue mission of their own. It's a terrifying thought, and he doesn't want to end up the way they did, but he knows that saving people from an empty life and showing them what their life could be with freedom is all the motivation he needs to go through with the plan. He tucks his gun in it’s holster, making sure everything they need to make it in is secure before his group splits off and finds the entrance.

The three of them find what they’d been sent to look for, a maintenance tunnel on the far west side of the city’s walls. It looks unused, a layer of red silt covering every surface of the tunnel except for a door on the right side at the end of it. Crybaby only notices the footprints then, boot tracks that are identical to ones shared by tons of killjoys out in the zones. It’s obvious to him then that the tunnel was one typically used by zonerunners, and it calms his nerves.

It takes two of them to pry the door open, the sheer weight of it being the biggest deterrent to not use it. He supposes the reason the city never blocked it off fully is because of how heavy the door is and how few people would be desperate enough to use it. On the other side of the door is another long corridor which leads into what looks like a street from what Crybaby could see. He didn’t think the city was stupid enough to leave such an accessible point open to the general public. He does his best to hold the door open as Mr. Miserable and Cyber Obscura rush past him and down the tunnel. He’s quick to follow as they turn a corner and duck into the darkness near the wall, small vendors stalls and other structures giving them more than enough cover to run further into the city. Once they’re far enough from the entrance point, Cyber Obscura takes off his backpack, opening it to reveal clothes that would help them blend in as citizens of the city. 

Crybaby had washed the rest of his purple hair dye out before they made it into the city, Cyber O reassuring him multiple times that his bleached hair wouldn’t raise any suspicion. They took the next few minutes to change, two people out of the group keeping watch as the last of them changed their clothes and shoved their normal clothes into the backpack before finding a hiding spot to keep it in while they completed their part of the mission. Crybaby felt like he was wearing a costume and felt especially stupid when the three of them passed by a glass storefront and he caught a glimpse of himself. He hadn’t seen himself with natural colored hair since he was a kid, remembering that he was 14 when he first bleached his hair and had never looked back since. He wasn’t much older than 14 from what he knew, but he felt older, looked older in the reflection. 

When he wasn’t showing his killjoy side, he felt vulnerable and fake. He couldn’t imagine growing up in the city like The Poet or Cyber Obscura. He tears his eyes away from the desaturated reflection and catches up with Cyber O and Mr. Miserable who are both about 3 yards ahead of him at that point. He can’t help but think about how foreign his reflection was to him in passing, thinking about how much he’d absolutely hate living in the city and being stripped of his freedom.

“What are you thinking about?” Cyber O asks after catching a glimpse of a brooding Crybaby out of the corner of his eye. He knows how this city is, and what it does to people like them if they stay for too long. It drives them insane.

“I can’t imagine being here under any other circumstances… I hate it here. It’s just, not natural,” he says, resting a hand on his raygun that’s hidden in his waistband. A chill travels down his spine and the whispers in his head amplify, a signal that Felony Steve is awake. He’s not sure if having Steve with them in the city will be beneficial or not, the undecided nature of Crybaby’s demon parasite making him the slightest bit uneasy.

“ _Remember my promise, Awsten,_ ” the voice of Felony Steve whispers quietly as Crybaby shivers.

“You good?” Cyber O asks, slowing his pace down so that he’s walking in time with Crybaby. He has to blink a few times before he’s able to focus on the situation once more, nodding as the nausea that was creeping in with the arrival of Felony Steve, settles down.

“Yeah, I’m fine, let’s just go get this over with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE DID IT, REDDIT (AFTER 3 MONTHS)

**Author's Note:**

> KILLJOY NAME KEY:
> 
> Crybaby - Awsten Knight  
> World Devastator - Otto Wood  
> New Wave - Geoff Wigington  
> The Poet - Patty Walters  
> The Reaper - Ben Langford-Biss  
> Dream Catcher - Cody Carson  
> Mr Miserable - Maxx Danziger  
> Glass Philosopher - Dan Clermont  
> Wicked Melody - Zach DeWall


End file.
